


Non-Linear

by edylue



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bands, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Alternating, POV Second Person, Past Suicide Attempt, Pining, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-02 09:08:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 4,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10941354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edylue/pseuds/edylue
Summary: Out-of-context excerpts from a longer work about band members and their relationships.(will be updated sporadically, if at all)





	1. Chapter 1

And here he is, stretched across your lap with a hand in a Cheetos bag and the other flipping through channels. His hair is red, oily, and you braid it with steady fingers. He is the sun, bright, charred. He is your sun. He is your sun.


	2. Chapter 2

Mark doesn't remember their first big music festival.

"They sang along," Oliver insists, Sam nodding beside him.

They're in a booth at a dingy twenty-four-hour diner. Mark is still weak from the hospital, but they pumped his stomach and made sure his system was clean and clear before they discharged him. His appetite didn't come back. It's perching on the table, wrapping itself around the salt and pepper shakers. A snake is on the table, narrowing its beady eyes at Mark as he reads over the menu, a sore stomach and a dizzy head in toll.

Sam and Oliver order grilled cheeses. Jack wants something greasy, something heavy, so he gets sausage and gravy that's mostly sausage. Mark, his appetite now a cockroach wiggling its dead legs, settles on a fizzy drink. It's all he can handle. He doesn't want to sit next to Jack once he gets his food. Mark has to angle himself away from the plate, toward the open window in order to get his stomach under control. This is Jack's fault. This is Jack's fault. Oliver suspects it. Mark wasn't like this before. It got worse with Jack, with Jack and his two handfuls of connections and dilated pupils.

"They were even talking along with you," Sam continues, picking away the crust from her sandwich. "You know, spoken word."

"What?"

Sam shakes her head, doesn't explain herself.

Oliver presses his foot to Mark's, gently prodding more than just his feet. Sipping on his drink, Mark wiggles his ankle and hopes it conveys something more than simple energy.

"I think it was a great show regardless," Jack says, his chin covered with food. Mark can't maintain eye contact. He looks ahead, at the space beside Oliver's ear and the diner door. Jack continues to talk, brushing Mark's illness under the carpet. Everybody knows what he's doing. Avoiding a topic such as this only proves guilt. Jack's guilt was proven as soon as he picked up Mark a second time and pronounced him sick, choking, he's choking, I think he's choking.

"I think he's sleeping."

An unfamiliar voice, it shakes Mark, like a bad jump scare. Eyes snapping open, spine straightening out, Mark pretends to be coherent. It doesn't work. He's figured out by the set of brown eyes in front of him. Jack is gone, Sam. Oliver is beside him now, touching the small of his back, holding him steady. "We lost you there," the brown eyes say, followed by a deep chuckle and the smile of shark teeth. "How late are you keeping him up? Lead singers need their sleep."

The diner isn't far from the festival. The festival is ongoing. This wouldn't be the first time a band solicited here between sets.

"Band" wouldn't exactly be the right word in this moment. The man with the brown eyes and great white teeth is by himself, left alone by band mates who had creative differences and drug problems and falling outs. Fates like this hope to be prevented by bands. They can be together for years, no fighting, no conflict. It's perfect. It has to be perfect. Perfect isn't being alone, using the same name since the beginning. A single man stands in the middle of the stage, not speaking of the empty spaces behind him, to his left, his right, everywhere. He doesn't talk about it. When he does talk about it, his jaw tightens, and his eyes glaze over, and he thinks of good times and regrets and heartbreak. There's heartbreak. Mark can see it in his eyes. They aren't glazed over now, but Mark can see it. It's there. Mark wants to cry.

"I'm gettin' enough sleep," Mark says.

Oliver's fingers scratch at Mark's back. "He's getting enough sleep."

Robin is the solo act's name. He's from Hawaii. His lips are full, eyes dark, deep, eyes that used to be caked with makeup when his band was four people, when he was only eighteen, a baby, innocence upfront and quickly taken away by a guitarist who was the first to leave. Robin is twenty-six, by himself, the guy who had to upstage the band who featured a vomiting lead singer twice in a row. Mark remembers him now. He was on Jack's shoulder, dizzy, not like how he's dizzy now, but he was dizzy, and Robin was there, bent over to stare at his face, checking on him, dark eyes open and wide and full lips parting and saying, "Fucking wild, are you okay?"

"I'm okay," Mark tells Robin. It's a late reply. Oliver's fingers stop in the middle of Mark's back, right at the notch in his spine that sticks out.

Robin smiles. It isn't earth-shattering or blinding. It's plain, plain to the point of it not being plain anymore. "That's good," he says, reaching across the table and patting the back of Mark's hand. "Being okay is good."


	3. Chapter 3

"What are you doing in here?"

"You can see the stars better in here."

"In the damn bathroom?"

"In the damn bathroom."

The edge of the bathtub is wet. Neither of them has used the shower. All of them plan to steal the shampoo bottles.

Mark is on the very, very edge of the bathtub, avoiding the wet, the damp. His toes curl inside fuzzy socks, not fit for summer nights. On the back wall, inconveniently placed above the tub, is the window. Mark's back is to it. "Are people actually taking baths here?"

The door doesn't have a lock. If Mark had been doing something, like Oliver surely thinks he was, he could have walked in and stopped it. Mark isn't doing anything. He's sitting here, had even left the door cracked for Oliver to watch him from the bed. Oliver moves around on the bed, though, not that long after Mark got up. From the tub, Mark sees shadows flail around in the dark, legs up, arms waving, hands grabbing. And now, Oliver is in the bathroom with Mark, looking worse than Mark had today. "Maybe you're the one needed on suicide watch."

Oliver shuts the door, flips on the light. Two of the three bulbs above the sink are blown. The glow is terrible. It gives Oliver's skin a ghastly sheen. "You look like something outta  _Ring_ ," says Mark, sliding his socks across the floor, splaying out his legs, his feet touching Oliver's. A small bathroom with a window above the tub is only fitting for a crummy motel.

"Wow, thanks." Oliver moves around, stepping over Mark's legs, making his way to the tub.

"I wouldn't sit there."

Oliver does anyway. "Gross."

"I warned you."

"So, what are you doing in here?"

"Sitting. Go back to bed."

"You go back to bed."

"I will." Mark drops his head to Oliver's shoulder. He doesn't move. "Can you do somethin' for me?"

This is when Oliver still has a full head of hair. Although it isn't as long as the time with Michael and Oliver's Adam's apple, it's long enough for fingers to twist the strands and pull and cause a great damage. Mark is guilty of this, always in a teasing manner. Oliver knows. He knows.

This is when Oliver still has a full head of hair. This is when he's talked about shaving or partially shaving his head. "Maybe I'll even dye it, too," he suggests, giving Mark a wink. Mark likes Oliver's brown hair. It's natural. Ruling out any unnatural colors would be unfair, so Mark gives Oliver a wink right back.

This is when Oliver still has a full head of hair. Mark says, "Can you do something for me?" And Oliver says, "What is it?" And Mark says, "Can you shave my head?" And Oliver blinks and says, "Like an egg?" And Mark actually fucking blushes and says, "No, sorry. That's not the right word. I meant 'buzz'. Buzz my head."

They use Jack's electronic razor. Among the humming and the constant battle of pushing the hair off them and to the floor, Oliver and Mark talk of  _Toy Story_. "It's your fault," Oliver says, "for saying 'buzz'."

And among the humming and the constant battle of making sure all the hair on his head is the same length, Mark and Oliver confess to crying at the end of the third movie. "It isn't embarrassing," Mark says, "because everybody was crying, too."

They almost leave the hair on the floor. "It'll add character to the room." Oliver laughs.

In the end, they dispose of it. Under the one, now blinking, light bulb above the sink, Oliver stands in front of Mark and rubs his head, over and over, and over and over, and over again. "Man, this is great."

The bed sheets are cold. They spoon again, Oliver engulfing Mark from behind. "I'm taller," he protests, a weak argument. It isn't because Oliver is taller. Mark finds that out later, when he wakes and feels Oliver's fingers running across the back of his head, the top of it, his lips against his skin, his cheek rubbing stubble against stubble. Mark closes his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

Was that too long? Oh, don't worry. Nothing is too long. Nothing is too short. You had to say what you had to say.

Will you be okay?

"I want him to kiss me."


	5. Chapter 5

Will you be okay?

What was that? One more time?

"I want him to kiss me."


	6. Chapter 6

And a third time?

"I want him to kiss me."


	7. Chapter 7

"I want him to kiss me."

Yes, we know.


	8. Chapter 8

At the hospital, with Oliver at his side, Mark learns he has no filter—though he blames it on the morphine.

He tells Oliver all sorts of things; many of these things are things no one, no matter how close to you, should hear. They are dark, wild. If Mark was coherent, he would be silent, would be mindful. He tells Oliver all sorts of things. He begins with childhood abuse.

"Never physical," Mark says, "but more people would have believed me if I said it was physical."

"Yeah," Oliver says. "I know. It sucks."

"Words leave the deepest scars." The fluorescent lighting hurts Mark's eyes. He forces himself to look at it. When he closes his eyes, to blink, he finds patterns. When he opens his eyes, to see, he finds Oliver. "You're fuckin' gorgeous, man."

Oliver's skin is ivory, flushing rose at the compliment. He doesn't meet Mark's eyes, closes his own. With long eyelashes like that, Mark wouldn't want to open his eyes either. "Thank you," Oliver whispers. His hands clasp together in his lap. He was holding Mark's hand again.

You don't know what that means.

"No problem." Snorting tastes like blood. An old tissue is up a nostril. Mark replaces it, moving around on the bed, making more noise than necessary. "Stupid gown," he sighs, twisting the tissue and sticking the tip back up his nose.

"Doesn't even tie up in the back." Oliver glances at him.

You don't know what that means.

You know now.

You didn't know then.

Mark shuts his eyes and doesn't open them for the rest of the night.


	9. Chapter 9

Late at night, with nothing reflective on whatsoever, Mark and Oliver go through the streets of their neighborhood with the wind in their hair and old skateboards beneath their feet. In the shed in his backyard, Oliver finds bikes. They're even older than the skateboards, and made for children. Hiding their laughter behind scarves and big coats, they try to ride the tricycles, but it doesn't work. "Rollerblades?" Oliver finds those next. He jams a foot inside and needs Mark's help in removing it. "Too tight, too tight, fuck, fuck,  _fuck_."

The skateboards are after that, and they're better than nothing. Oliver is a pro. Mark forgets how to ride at first. It doesn't take long to remember racing through these streets when he was fourteen and bitter about his dad, fifteen and bitter about his dad's death, sixteen and bitter about everything else in his damn life. He leans back and forth, lets Oliver whiz past, smiles, laughs. Both of them are laughing. Oliver is ahead of Mark, his laughter as breezy as the wind going through Mark's hair. Mark's hair is longer now. Oliver runs his fingers through it every morning. "Want me to buzz it tonight?" he asks every morning, and every morning, Mark shakes his head.

He says it's because of winter. He says it's because his head might get cold.

It's because he enjoys Oliver's fingers in it, giving the lightest of pulls, the softest of giggles as he asks, "Want me to buzz it tonight?"

A car almost hits Oliver. He disappears from Mark's sight, tires squeal, and the car continues along the road. Mark rolls to a stop on the sidewalk, staring across the road, at the space where Oliver was standing, at the space Oliver is sitting. He's in a patch of grass, lying on his side as if it's a rock in the middle of the ocean. The skateboard is several feet down the street, the wheels in the air, spinning, spinning, spinning. Mark is on his knees beside Oliver in no time at all. His own skateboard is inching toward Oliver's, bumping, stopping, spinning, spinning, spinning.

"Hey, you okay?" Mark tugs down Oliver's scarf, freeing his mouth, seeing the blood on his lip. "Did you bite your lip?"

"Yes." Oliver sits up properly. He shows Mark his palms, the scrapes—bright red, pink. This red isn't angry. It's passionate, fire. "My knees feel bad."

Oliver's jeans are torn. His knees poke out, pale, bright red, pink, not angry, passionate, fire, the sun. Mark touches Oliver's thigh, leaning in to press his forehead to Oliver's temple, his cheek. Oliver's cheek is also hurt. It isn't that bad, not like his hands, not like his knees. Mark kisses Oliver's cheek. He might vomit. "Can you stand?"

Oliver stands. Mark holds him up, an arm around his waist. "Do you want to go back now?"

"No," Oliver says. "There's a dollar store just down the road. Gotta get some fucking gauze."

Mark grabs their skateboards. Oliver carries all the medical supplies. He gets blood everywhere.

The teenager at the register looks ready to call a manager. Oliver and Mark must look a pair.

They might be a bit recognizable to the teenager. Wide eyes and twitching fingers are common side effects to seeing their band, but those are contained in a crowd, surrounded by people doing the very same. Taking it from that crowd and dropping it in the middle of a dollar store is scary. Mark worries. "Hey…"

"Can I have a hug?"

"I might get blood on you," Oliver says.

"Thank you for asking," Mark says.

They leave after hugging.

Oliver swipes his tongue across his bottom lip every so often to catch the blood. He's limping. "My knees are killing me."

"That's what he said."

Blood flies from Oliver's mouth when he laughs. "Shut the fuck up, man."

Back in Oliver's bedroom, still damp from a quick shower, Oliver is the perfect patient. Mark dresses his wound, loose, allowing the skin to breathe. It would be horrifying to find Oliver's hands and legs blue in the morning.

Oliver being naked in front of Mark is second nature now. Mark drops to the floor to fix Oliver's knees, and doesn't think about Oliver's legs open before him, inviting. Oliver isn't even aroused. It's second nature to him now, too. Mark wonders how bus life will be when they return to touring.

"What about your lip?" Mark stares at the gauze and anti-bacterial cream in his hands. "I can't do anything about that."

"Just leave it. I don't need stitches. I'm fine."

"You're fine."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

Oliver's muscles are exhausted, screaming as bright and as loudly as the sunlight through the glass of the window. "Getting run over would be better than this."

"For sure?"

"For sure."

"One hundred percent serious right now?"

"One hundred  _and ten_  percent serious right now."

They stick their hands in each other's hair, holding the back of their heads with their palms. Oliver's palm is covered by gauze. It's a cushion to Mark. He leans in, kissing Oliver's cheek for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. He hadn't covered this cut with anything. It's tiny, nothing of concern.

Oliver grins, his teeth as bright and loud as the sunlight. " _Come on_ ," he says. "Fix me some of that idli."


	10. Chapter 10

Madeline gives Oliver her number. It's as Mark and him are standing on the front porch, heading home—no, to Oliver's home. This realization hits Mark very roughly. He's on the front porch steps, faintly smiling at the houses down the street, across the street. It feels freeing. Oliver helps Mark feel free.

"Olive?" Mark turns his head. "You coming?"

Madeline is at the door, though, fiddling with a torn-in-half post-it note, the sticky side on her finger, her finger out for Oliver. Oliver is next to her, eyeing the post-it note, the number. His attention is on Madeline, on her leaning against the doorjamb, her blonde hair in a ponytail, a smirk on her lips, not even seeming to care it's cold outside. She's wearing shorts, a t-shirt, a smirk. She's smirking at Oliver, eyes half-lidded and flashing her number. "Maybe you can text me sometime," she says, voice low, tempting. "Or maybe not."

"Maybe." Oliver peels the note from her finger. Mark starts walking, leaves Oliver behind, Oliver, with Madeline's number in his hand, with Mark's clothes on his body, with Mark's name sliding through his teeth. "Mark!" he calls, "Wait up!"

The exchange between Madeline and Oliver cuts short after that. Oliver sprints down the stairs, Madeline closes the door, Mark walks. Oliver sticks the note in a pocket and touches Mark's arm. "Mark," he says, "where are you going?"

"I thought I saw a cat." Mark is surprised at how real the lie sounds. "It ran away from me."

"That's the breaks." Oliver smiles. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

In Oliver's room, Mark suggests watching movies. When they get comfortable, Mark climbs onto Oliver, rolls them off the bed, and they're twisting, shoving, laughing, and Oliver pins Mark to the carpet, tells him to give up, and Mark leans up and bites Oliver on the neck, hard, it's so hard, Mark can taste blood, and Oliver gasps, Oliver  _moans_ , and now they're sitting on the floor, staring at each other with frightened eyes, with heaving chests, with the world falling around them. "Wow," Oliver says, then, "I mean…  _ow_. Ow. That hurt."

"Sorry."

"No… it's… fine. It was there, yeah? Just like my arm."

"Yeah, that's what I was aiming for… your arm."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, but you, uh, your neck got in the way."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

The next time they see Bailey, Madeline is with her again. Madeline hugs Oliver, her mouth in perfect line with Oliver's neck; and when she opens her eyes, pulls away, she sees the bite marks. They're dark, bruised with ugly colors, hurts like hell, too. She touches her mouth, stares at Oliver, and then at Mark, and Mark stares at Oliver, stares at her, and nothing passes, but something passes. She knows. Yet, she asks. "How'd you get that?"

"Mark and I were wrestling a few days ago. It got out of hand." Oliver laughs. "I still won, though. Don't you think so?"

"Yeah," Mark says, "you should see the other guy."

And that's… Oliver laughs again, cheeks pink, so pink.

Madeline knows. She knows. She knows.


	11. Chapter 11

You run the pad of your middle finger along the bridge of his nose. It goes down, like a ski slope, and then back up, up a bunny hill, and then back down, down. You finish with a leap, a sudden drop to his septum, a trip to his philtrum, a pause at the Cupid's bow. You tap, tap. You return to the top, to the space between his eyebrows, feeling the small hairs there. And your finger goes down, like a ski slope, and then back up, up a bunny hill, and then back down, down. You don't finish with a leap. You pause at the tip of his nose. And you go back up, up to between his eyebrows, going down, down, up, down, pause. Gently, you stroke his septum with a fingertip.

"What are you doing?" An earthquake, an earth-shattering break, break, his voice is low, grass splitting in half.

You lift your finger. "Your nose."

"Yeah?"

"It has a bump in the bridge."

"Yeah."

"Did you break it?"

"No."

You run your finger along it again. It's like velvet, his skin, but then you remember when his skin also felt like velvet, and you don't want to go to that place again. That place is dark, very dark, like crimson. His nails are torn to shreds, pouring fresh blood and dyed with blood that is there for hours. His blood is under your nails. "No, it's all right," he tells you, and sucks on his fingers like pacifiers. "Bad dream, yeah?"

"Yeah," you say, and you remember watching him lick his fingers. When he doesn't look, you clean off your own nails with your tongue and teeth.

"I like your nose," you say, but it isn't your voice. It's higher, raspier than yours, dark—not dark like drugs, but dark like nighttime, dark like under the covers, dark like wet mouths and closed eyelids.

"I like your nose," the voice says, and the voice kisses him, kisses his philtrum, his upper lip. The voice bites his upper lip, white teeth sharp. The voice's hair is blonde, a lion's mane. A lion preys on him, biting his lips, kissing his philtrum, his fucking tongue. "I like your nose," she says. The voice is a girl, a woman with blonde hair, heavy eyes, and no shirt. His hands are on her arms, her waist, her sides, her breasts. He's touching her chest, squeezing like he squeezes your toes. She takes his hands, pins them to the sofa, taking over, taking control, you want control, she takes control, swinging her hips, rolling her hips, and the move is familiar because he's seen it before, she's familiar he said, and she swings her hips, she rolls her hips, and she bites his lips and says, "I like your nose."

He's panting, arching into her, fingers curling around air, air, you want to be air. "Shit," he sighs, head tilting back, arching more, more, on air. "I never heard that before."

You are not air. You are on your way to the bathroom, suspicious of grunting and profanity. Curiosity killed the cat. The bus' bathroom is small, cramped, and you sit in there and decide you never want to come out.

" _Come on_ ," you hear in the morning. "I really need to piss."

Come on. Come on.

But you're not there yet. You're lying in bed with him, naked, so fucking naked. He's naked beside you, under the covers, and you are naked, too, naked beside him, under the covers. Days pass, nights pass, and he peels off clothing and doesn't dress after his showers, and you give in, you take off your clothes as he does one night, and you climb into bed, and he asks you if you still want to cuddle, but you're already crawling toward him, pressing against him, arms around his chest, your nose to the nape of his neck, your leg between his legs. You're warm, you're so fucking warm.

" _Come on_ ," you hear in the morning. "My armpit isn't that interesting."

Come on. Come on.

And you're here right now. Head next to his, sharing a pillow, his arm around your shoulders, pulling you in, holding you close, so fucking close, the pad of your middle finger along the bridge of his nose. It goes down, like a ski slope, and then back up, up a bunny hill, and then back down, down. You talk about his nose. He hasn't broken it. You like his nose. You touch it again, again. "Your nose," you say, "I like it."

He rubs your bicep. "I never heard that before."

He hears it first here, then fakes it later on there, with you watching in the hallway, to the bathroom, with him on his back, on the sofa, with her hips swinging and rolling, her hands holding him down, with him arching and arching.

" _Come on_ ," you hear in the morning. "Fix me some of that idli."

Come on. Come on.


End file.
